Those who knew Ron Haskell as a teen in Alaska had no idea he might end up at the center of a family tragedy in Texas

Ron Haskell was a well-liked class clown and homecoming king at his high school in Alaska.

To those who knew him in a casual way, Ron Haskell was a normal guy, reasonably amiable and apparently carefree, a father and husband living an unremarkable life.

The monster inside was known to those who mattered most, especially his wife Melannie, who endured years of abuse and hoped against hope that things might change. Ultimately they did, though only for the worse, culminating last week in the massacre of her sister's family.

Over the past year Haskell's life had been on a sinking trajectory. The family's new home that he had literally helped to build in Smithfield, Utah, just outside of Logan, would not include him. That became clear when Melannie, fed up, finally filed for divorce in October. With the facade of a happy Mormon family shattered, the depression that some say had dogged his life for years increased.

Then Melannie decided to leave Utah altogether, looking to a new life in Houston, where her sister and parents lived. Her four children would be surrounded by five happy cousins and people who did not constantly quarrel and fight. Haskell, too, found little reason to remain in Utah. Unemployed and facing a $773 monthly payment for child support, he moved to California, where parents and siblings lived.

But in his case it was no happy reunion. Depression and anger grew. There were reports from family members that he would go days without eating or leaving his room in his mother's home. And the violence he had repeatedly shown toward Melannie flared up in November when he reportedly assaulted his sister and mother. Chandra Haskell sought a restraining order to get her brother out of the home.

"I am afraid that if Ronald remains … he will harm me again," she wrote in her application for the order, which later was dismissed when she did not follow through.

'Can't plan for crazy'

About 10 days ago, Haskell argued again with his mother, who had offended him by speaking to his ex-wife. He duct-taped his mom's wrists and taped her arm to a chair, screaming at her and choking her until she passed out. He left the house several hours later, but authorities were not called until her daughter arrived.

Sheriff's deputies in San Diego County looked for Haskell around the California town of San Marcos, where the family lives. They were still trying to find him days later when they got word that he was in custody in Texas, where his anger had reached the boiling point in a murderous rampage Wednesday afternoon.

The victims were Melannie's sister and brother-in-law, Katie and Stephen Stay, and four of their five children. The body count could have been higher had not the Stays' oldest daughter, 15-year-old Cassidy Stay, survived and called authorities to report that her ex-uncle was on his way to her grandparents' house.

How Haskell's mental state reached the point of gunplay, which had never been mentioned in previous abuse reports to police, may be known only to a few who are close to him, if at all. Melannie's divorce lawyer, A. Daniel Barker, was sickened when he learned of the family slaughter. He wonders if he should have seen some indication, even a hint, that Haskell's instability was reaching a new level, and he combed his memory of their times together in court and of his conversations with Melannie. He came up with little.

"Ron came across with a good demeanor," Barker said. "He spoke well and didn't raise his voice. He had that personality where you wouldn't expect something like this to happen. But you also had a feeling there might be something behind that exterior. There was something going on inside him."

Only because his client had given him a full accounting of her marital strife was Barker aware of Haskell's potential for violence. When Melannie decided to relocate to Houston and Ron then headed to Southern California, Barker breathed a little easier. Surely that was enough distance between them, he thought.

"I was more fearful for her safety than with any other client I've had," the lawyer said. "Had she still lived in (Utah) I would have been more concerned. But he was moving to California, where he would have the support of his family. She was moving to Texas. The problem was that this was someone who was intent on something. You can't plan for crazy."

The trip from California to Texas was not nearly as far as the psychological journey Haskell had taken through his adult years. To those who knew him as a teenager in Alaska, there was nothing to suggest what he would become. He was a good kid from a righteous family, who were respected for their devotion to the gospel and to the church.

At Chugiak High School, Haskell established himself as a class clown, a bit of a goofball and a flirt who carried his stocky build in a comical way, recalled former classmate Carolee Beckham, whose family lived close to the Haskells in the Mormon community of Eagle River, just outside of Anchorage.

"He made everyone feel like it was OK to be who you were," Beckham said.

Another classmate, Drew Nevitt, remembered mostly Haskell's ever-present humor. In an interview with the Alaska Dispatch News, Nevitt said Haskell was always cracking jokes, and called him "the Chris Farley of Eagle River," even if the physical bulk that might prompt such comparisons was still years off.

The Times Dispatch article refers to a quote from Haskell in the high school yearbook: "Why did they pick me to be class clown? I think it's because I'm so darn good looking." In his senior photograph, he wears a simple white T-shirt and large wire-rimmed glasses, with his hair cut well above the ears and parted down the middle.

Haskell was liked and thought of as neither a bully nor a loner. Beckham called him the sort of person who would invite the girl no one else would invite to the big dance. He was named homecoming king in the class of about 400 and was a lineman on the football team. Beckham lost track of him after he graduated in 1999, three years before he married Melannie, but she remembers only the good - his service in Boy Scouts and in the Mormon church.

"Knowing his family was a positive thing for everyone in our community growing up," she said. "His brothers were nice, funny. His parents were just good people. I can't even imagine what they're feeling … Knowing him back then, he was the very last person I think anyone would have expected this of."

It's not clear when Haskell left Alaska. State records track him applying for a permanent fund dividend given to the state's full-time residents through 2004. He also maintained hunting and fishing licenses from the same period. But by that time he had a wife and growing family in Logan, about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City.

Anger turns to abuse

Outward appearances suggested nothing was amiss, even if Melannie knew better. She stayed home with their young children while he worked at a cheese factory and for a courier service, among other jobs. He enjoyed the outdoors and camping, was typically cordial and mostly kept to himself, said Steven Kippen, bishop of the Yorkshire Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Logan.

"He was apparently a different person at home," Kippen said. "But not always. And it's still crazy to see something of this magnitude come out of it."

The domestic abuse Melannie endured finally became a matter of public record when she called police in June of 2008. She told officers that Ron had repeatedly struck her and had grabbed her by the hair while throwing her from their bedroom. The case was resolved with a plea deal that required him to avoid any additional criminal charges for a period of time.

But the abuse eventually resumed. Kippen counseled Melannie about the domestic turmoil, but declined to give details out of concern for the family's privacy. Kippen said he had a clear impression that Ron struggled with deep depression and anger.

Even as the abuse escalated, the couple set about building a home in Smithfield. It was during construction that Melannie began to confide to a future neighbor, Jolyn Young, who was building her own home nearby. Young told the Logan Herald Journal that Melannie believed the abuse would subside in time. The revelation shocked Young, who would not have imagined the man she met could be so different in the privacy of his home.

Young said she thought of Ron as a "dorky, humorous, carefree man" - descriptions that echo his old high school friends - and that she never saw anything that made her suspect there were problems between him and his wife.

"I didn't realize how unstable he was," Young said. "He really had us fooled."

Melannie reached her breaking point last year after seeing one of their children exhibiting behavior similar to her husband's, Young said. Melannie told her that she had left her husband and filed for divorce. She even joked that she was eager to buy new pots and pans for her home because the old set reminded her of the times her husband had struck her with them.

The marriage disintegrated just as the couple were finishing construction on their home. The Haskells surprised their friends by announcing a split just before Thanksgiving 2013.

Melannie got a restraining order against Ron and similar language was placed in the divorce decree, which also required that he undergo a psychological evaluation and demonstrate that he was emotionally and mentally stable enough for unsupervised visits with his children.

As for the new home, it would go to a different family. Melannie would be moving permanently to Texas, staying first with the Stays, who came from Houston to fetch her. Ron would head home to his family in Southern California to rebuild his life and pull himself together.

"We thought he was making pretty good progress," Kippen said. "He was meeting with professionals. I was under the impression that he was on medication."

Sliver of good news

The Haskells' divorce became final on Valentine's Day. If there was any progress over the next few months, it was small and temporary. By July, Ron was as angry as ever. If he was making plans for the future, they were short-term and ultimately horrifying.

By week's end, his life had intersected his former wife's one final time, a final blow and the most brutal yet. While she prepared to bury her sister, brother-in-law and the four children, he was standing dazed and seemingly faint in a downtown courtroom for formal arraignment.

She faces a new and unanticipated challenge in rebuilding her life, with the only sliver of good news being the survival of one of her nieces.

Haskell's future, by contrast, may at last have something close to certainty in it: He is charged with capital murder and will certainly face the possibility of a death sentence in a Texas county that has sent more people to death row than anywhere else in America. His attorney already indicated that he will focus on Haskell's mental state, the hope being that the intensity of his rage might make him somehow less legally culpable.

The jury will be left to survey the carnage that took place on Leaflet Lane, where seven people were shot one by one, methodically and with their hands bound.